Page:The American Language.djvu/190

174 by the national flat a. Grandgent says that the broad a is now restricted in New England to the following situations:

1. when followed by s or ns, as in last and dance.

2. when followed by r preceding another consonant, as in cart.

3. when followed by lm, as in calm.

4. when followed by f, s or th, as in laugh, pass and path.

The w-sound also shows certain differences between English and American usage. The English reduce the last syllable of figure to ger; the educated American preserves the it-sound as in nature. The English make the first syllable of courteous rhyme with fort; the American standard rhymes it with hurt. The English give an oo-sound to the u of brusque; in America the word commonly rhymes with tusk. A w-sound, as everyone knows, gets into the American pronunciation of clerk, by analogy with insert; the English cling to a broad a-sound, by analogy with hearth. Even the latter, in the United States, is often pro- nounced to rhyme with dearth. The American, in general, is much less careful than the Englishman to preserve the shadowy y-sound before u in words of the duke-class. He retains it in few, but surely not in new. Nor in duke, Hue, stew, due, duty and true. Nor even in Tuesday. Purists often attack the sim- ple oo-sound. In 1912, for example, the Department of Educa- tion of New York City warned all the municipal high-school teachers to combat it. But it is doubtful that one pupil in a hundred was thereby induced to insert the y in induced. Finally there is lieutenant. The Englishman pronounces the first syllable left; the American invariably makes it loot. White says that the prevailing American pronunciation is relatively recent. "I never heard it," he reports, "in my boyhood." He was born in New York in 1821.

The i-sound presents several curious differences. The Eng- lish make it long in all words of the hostile-class; in America it is commonly short, even in puerile. The English also lengthen it in sliver; in America the word usually rhymes with liver. The